The sugar industry and the federal government have been colluding since the 1960s to boost consumption of the commodity as it knowingly hid the detrimental effects of its product, choosing instead to foist another harmful substance on society.

According to Vocativ, the collusion was laid bare in a new study spanning more than 1,500 pages of correspondence between sugar industry and researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Dental Research (NIDR). The "Sugar Papers," as they are known, indicate that every member but one on a government task force studying tooth decay also happened to sit on the sugar industry's expert panel. Also, the study found that 78 percent of industry recommendations eventually found their way into the 1971 National Caries Program.

"These tactics are strikingly similar to what we saw in the tobacco industry in the same era," Stanton A. Glantz, an anti-tobacco activist and researcher at UC San Francisco, who coauthored the paper, said. "Our findings are a wake-up call for government officials...to understand that the sugar industry, like the tobacco industry, seeks to protect profits over public health."

'We've always known you should restrict sugar intake'

For instance, the study's authors discovered that the sugar industry was well aware that its product caused tooth decade as early as 1950. But rather than addressing the problem directly, industry researchers issued a wave of faux-scientific recommendations that called instead for increased use of fluoridated water and better dental fillings, but not reducing the intake of sugar.

Vocativ further reported:

In October 1969, the NIDR formed a task force to create a list of priorities for preventing dental cavities. Scientists on the task force agreed that sugary foods were the root of the problem, and initially recommended Americans cut back on sugar to prevent tooth decay. But the sugar industry convened its own panel just weeks later, which included all but one member of the NIDR task force.

Perhaps predictably, the sugar panel never recommending cutting intake of sugar. So when the industry's proposals were sent to the NIDR researchers - essentially submitting recommendations to themselves - the NIDR acquiesced. Furthermore, the landmark National Caries Program, which was launched to combat and prevent tooth decay, never recommended lower sugar intake.

"The NCP was a missed opportunity to develop a scientific understanding of how to restrict sugar consumption to prevent tooth decay," authors said in conclusion of their study, which was published in PLoS Medicine. "A key factor was the alignment of research agendas between the NIDR and the sugar industry. This historical example illustrates how industry protects itself from potentially damaging research, which can inform policy makers today."

Cover up of two substances has caused incalculable damage

"The dental community has always known that preventing tooth decay required restricting sugar intake," said first author Cristin Kearns, DDS, MBA, a UCSF postdoctoral scholar who discovered the archives. "It was disappointing to learn that the policies we are debating today could have been addressed more than 40 years ago."

So, what has decades' worth of cover-up regarding both sugar and fluoride led to?

First, understand that added sugar is literally the worst food substance in the modern-day diet, affecting metabolism and causing a number of medical conditions like obesity, diabetes and cardiac disease. It also contributes to the development of some cancers and contributes to premature aging.

Fluoride, meanwhile, has been linked to childhood ADHD and other mental problems, including lowered I.Q. A Harvard study published in 2014 in the respected medical journal The Lancet found the fluoride chemicals added to many public water systems in North America directly contribute to both mental and behavioral disorders in children.

The study built on previous 2006 research that labeled fluoride a "developmental neurotoxicant."